The current state-of-the-art of these materials is however poorly understood [1]}, [2]}, [3]}. Unlike the equations for fluid mechanics (e.g. Navier-Stokes equation) which describes the fluid flow, a successful theory for the steady-state elastoplastic flow is still lacking. This can be attributed to the large variety of micro-structures explored by these materials. Given the fact that glassy materials are out of equilibrium solids and at very low temperatures (below \(T_g\) ), they are stuck in one of the metastable minima in the potential energy landscape where the constituent particles vibrate around some mean position. The configurations of a particular glassy sample will reside in close proximity over a long period (large compared to the experimental time scale). As a result, the system is non-ergodic and has a limited number of accessible microstates. The application of external loading distorts the energy landscape [4]}. It was shown in the athermal quasistatic limit that the yielding process unleashes a vast number of configuration states that were inaccessible before yielding [5]}, [6]}, [7]}, [8]}. This is often termed as strain-induced ergodization and the material fluidize under the influence of large strain.
